Malebolge
"Ten ditches leading down the final circle. Each filled with its own crimes, its own forms of punishment." -''Thais'' As Dante continues his descent through Hell, the sins committed by the damned become increasingly vile. Malebolge, the eighth circle, has ten circular ditches, one for each different type of Fraud. Only one more circle separates him from his beloved Beatrice, and the lair of Lucifer himself. The Ten Pits of Fraud Panderers and Seducers :"The panderers and seducers will spend eternity beaten, prodded and whipped by Lucifer's lieutenants." The first ditch contains the panderers and seducers. The souls here are beaten and whipped for eternity by horned demons. They lash and rend the flesh of sinners with every step they take. Among those confined here is the Greek hero, Jason. His habit of loving and leaving women sealed his fate here. Flatterers :"My brethren in the Malebolge, we flounder in sewage and waste." The second ditch contains the flatterers. Those that are guilty of excessive flattery are punished here, immersed forever in a river of human excrement. Simony :"Sellers of favors, crimes against the church. They are trapped in baptismal baths, their feet eternally in flames." The third level of the Malebolge contains the Simonists (sinners guilty of selling church offices for personal gain). They are punished by put upside down into baptismal fonts and having their feet set aflame. The heat of the flames burns according to the guilt of the sinner. When another soul is sent to this level of the Malebolge it take the place of one of the others as the one it replaced disappears forever Diviners :"The fortune tellers should have known that they cannot see with the eyes of God. They walk with their heads backwards, their eyes awash in tears." The fourth ditch is devoted to the diviners and fortune tellers. Astrologists, seers, sorcerers and others who attempted to pervert God’s laws to divine the future are punished here. Their heads have been twisted around to face backwards, and thus they are forced to walk backwards around the circumference of their circle for all of time. The blind prophet Tiresias resides in this ditch for his sins. Grafters :"Great, winged demons tend to the grafters, who stole and embezzled in life. They are thrown into deep, vile pits." The fifth level of the Malebolge is the home of the Grafters (peculators, extortionists, blackmailers and unscrupulous businessmen: sinners who used their positions in life to gain personal wealth or other advantages for themselves). They are punished by being thrown into a river of boiling pitch and tar. In addition, should any of the grafters try to escape the pitch, a horde of demons ("Malebranche", meaning "evil claws") armed with grappling hooks and barbs stands guard over them, ready to tear them to pieces. Hypocrites :"The cloaks of the hypocrites appear regal and noble, and yet worn as punishment, each lined with crippling lead." The sixth level is the punishment for hypocrites. They are forced to wear heavy lead robes as they walk around the circumference of their circle. The robes are golden and resemble a monk’s cowl but are lined with heavy lead, symbolically representing hypocrisy. Also, Caiaphas, the Pharisee who insisted on the execution of Jesus, is crucified in this circle, staked to the ground so that the ranks of the lead-weighted hypocrites march across him. Thieves :"Thieves are held and bitten by serpents. the venom burns them to ash, only so they may reform and suffer again." The seventh ditch is the home of the souls of thieves. The ditch is also filled with serpents, dragons and other vengeful reptiles that torture the thieves endlessly. The bites of some of the snakes cause the thieves to spontaneously combust, only to regenerate their bodies for further torment in a few moments. Other thieves are denied human forms and appear as reptiles themselves, and can only assume their true shape if they steal a human shape from another sinner; this involves a very painful transformation for both souls involved. Evil Counselors :"Evil advisers who used their forked-tongues for counsel serving their own ends. They stand ablaze." The eighth level is the home of evil counselors. In this trench, the souls of deceivers who gave false or corrupted advice to others for personal benefit are punished. They are constantly ablaze, appearing as nothing so much as living, speaking tongues of flame. Sowers of Discord :"They hold their heads and innards, the chaos they caused in life, cast upon them in death." The ninth level is the home of "sowers of discord". Sinners who, in life, promoted scandals, schism, and discord are punished here; particularly those who caused schism within the church or within politics. They are forced to walk around the circumference of the circle bearing horrible, disfiguring wounds inflicted on them by a great demon with a sword. The nature of the wound mirrors the sins of the particular soul; while some only have gashes, or fingers and toes cut off, others are decapitated, cut in half (as schismatics), or are completely disemboweled. Among those who are tormented here is Bertran de Born, who carries around his severed head like a lantern. Falsifiers :"All thoughts of pain and suffering fall upon the falsifiers. Hear their wailing and be warned." The final ditch. Falsifiers, those who attempted to alter things through lies or alchemy, or those who tried to pass off false things as real things, such as counterfeiters of coins, are punished here. This ditch has four subdivisions where specific classes of falsifiers (alchemists, impostors, counterfeiters, and liars) endure different degrees of punishment based on horrible, consumptive diseases such as rashes, dropsy, leprosy and consumption. Trivia *In "The Inferno" the "Malebolge" was another name for Hell's eighth circle. It's name translates to "Evil Pits", corresponding to its ten pits of Fraud. Category:Locations